


Remember, This is Important

by TriplePirouette



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, post-ep
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-15
Updated: 2014-09-04
Packaged: 2017-11-16 09:29:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriplePirouette/pseuds/TriplePirouette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-ep for 2x02 We Are Both, based on some interesting speculation in the fandom. Belle crosses the town limit line, and without any memory of who she is she goes searching for Baelfire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

She turned around, staring at the street in the dark night. Behind her was a bright orange line, a green sign, stone under her feet. It felt odd and strange and for a moment, she was scared. She looked down at the paper she held in her hands, and read.

_Your name is Belle. You love a man named Rum Gold. You are doing this for him. Remember that, it will be important, because you are his true love and he is yours, and if you can love him, then one day, he will show you how to remember who you are._

_Behind you is a car. It’s packed with clothes and maps and money. Everything you’ll need. You’re going on a trip. I know this because I am you. You can’t remember now, but you will one day. Rum will show you how. He can’t leave Storybrooke, but you can. He’s lost his son, and you need to find him. His name is Baelfire. There’s a whole book in the car of everything you need to know, and where you should start your search. Don’t read it now._

_Now, get in the car and drive. Go as far as you can before you stop for the night. Rum will want to follow you. You left him a note, but we don’t want him to leave. Remember this, it’s important. RUM CAN’T LEAVE. If he leaves, he won’t remember you or his son, and all is lost._

_I’ve explained more, it’s in the book in the car, but there isn’t time for that now. Everything you need is in the car. Get in and drive._

_You are getting your True Love’s son back. You are being brave. You are going on a great adventure. You can’t remember it now, but this is important. Because you’re the only one who can go. You’re the only one who has just enough memories to get by in the world, but to still remember what needs to be done when you leave. Everyone else is trapped. No one else will help him._

_Save your True Love’s son, and you save his soul. Save his soul, and he can help save everyone else._

_Be brave. We can do this._

_Get in the car. Drive._

She looked at the words. There was a hint of something in the back of her head. A memory? A cold room and itchy tights and a man freeing her telling her to go see Mr. Gold. It didn’t make sense, but few things did to her ever. She did know that she’s always wanted adventure. She wanted to be brave and help people. She turned back, getting into the car and letting her muscle memory tell her how to start it and how to move the wheel smoothly. She muttered to herself, trying to commit the letter to memory, though she knew that she’d find much more in the tattered notebook on the passenger’s seat.

She clicked on the headlights, pressed smoothly on the gas, and drove.  


	2. Remember, His Voice

She wrote him letters once a week. There was an address in her book, and she wrote letters about her progress, what she was doing, how she was. She never put a return address on them. She didn't know if he was getting them. But the book had warned: he'd want to follow her, and she couldn't let him leave. 

She wanted to know him desperately. She wanted to know the man she loved enough to wipe her memory for, to leave for, to give up her own happiness for his. Her book was detailed. She'd left herself all the clues for finding Baelfire that she could, and every bit of history that she'd had with Rum Gold. But she wanted to see his face. To know him. To hear his voice. 

It felt like she was living some kind of fairytale, she wanted to hard, cold reality. 

The motel she was staying at was dingy and cheep, but she's spent months on the road and was starting the dwindle low in funds. She had clues. She had ideas. She felt like she was getting closer, but there wasn't much hope left in her. 

The motel had one computer in the lobby with free internet access. She sat down at it, stared for a moment, and then opened up the browser. “Mr. Gold's Pawn Shop” she typed. She got hundreds of hits for places that would buy and sell gold, but only one that listed the location of Storybrooke, Maine. She wrote down the number and hurried back to her room. 

The next day she stopped at a gas station, pulling around the side and fumbling change from her pocket and she dialed the numbers on the dirty pay phone. It rang three times before a gruff hello answered.

“Rum?” She asked, nervous and wary. 

“Belle? Belle, where are you? I will come get you, or send a car for you. Please. Where are you?” 

She sighed and smiled. It wasn't his words, or his pleas. He existed. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she was worried this was all a trick. But he existed, and he was worried about her. 

“I'm ok, and you can't come for me. You know that.” She played with the cord. “Remember this, it's important,” she said, listening as he argued back. “I love you, and I'm going to find Baelfire.” 

She hung up before he could say anything else. 

He had a voice, he knew the sound of hers. It was real, all of it. It made the last bit of doubt she harbored disappear and her resolve grow stronger. There was a man attached to the name now. A man with a smooth, lilting voice that missed her, that missed his son, and he wanted him back. 

She pulled out of the parking lot, her next destination causing her heart to beat fast.


	3. Remember, There’s a Reason

She'd read the notebook dozens of times now. 

Her loopy scrawl was interrupted by pasted in pages of Rum Gold's own scratchy notes. She couldn't recall, didn't know, if he knew about her notebook, but she guessed not. 

The first few pages were things that she needed to know: where she was, who she was, and little things like how to use a telephone and how much money she should use and which coins and pieces of paper were worth what. 

The majority of it was Rum's notes, pasted and taped in carefully, refolded and re-read over and over now so many times she could say the words by heart. The first half was clues: a picture of what he looked like, his name, his height, his coloring, thoughts about where the portal would have come out and how long he might have been around. Sometimes they contradicted one another, but more often than not they led her on a single, straight line to search around. Her own handwriting left her the well thought out plan that she was following now. 

The second half… the second half broke her heart. They were words of desperation, of a broken man looking for his son. He'd written him letters. Notes. Anything to say how sorry he was for his shortcomings. He wrote confessions and promises, birthday greetings and goodbye letters. She couldn’t remember why she included these bits and couldn’t begin to fathom how she’d even gotten them, but it fueled her tired nights and desperate days with an urgency she might not have had otherwise. 

The first night, when she'd found herself at a motel just outside of Maine, she couldn't bare to read them. It felt like snooping, like knowing something that wasn't for her eyes. But after the first week when Baelfire wasn't at either of her first two stops and she started to question this little trip, she'd turned to those pages and read. 

Now, she read them, trying to imagine Rum’s voice, deep and low with the light note of an accent on top of it that stirred something deep inside her. She only had a few fading words from the payphone conversation, but they stirred so many more drifting in and out of focus in the back of her mind. 

My boy, I have searched for centuries. I know the dark magic displeases you, but it is all I have left to cling to if I have any hopes of one day finding you. It is what I shall do, Bae, even if it takes until my very last breath. I will find you. 

Another letter, a different page. 

I found the woman who should have been your mother. Even such as I am she cares for me, though I still fail to see why. Your own mother I failed in so many ways, but she failed you, too, and for that I can never forgive her. I will tell you the truth of her, Bae, if you wish, for I found that out long after you left me. When you asked, my only reply could have been that she was dead, for I could see no other fate for her. Had we been of the same time, the same status, oh, my dear boy… Belle. You would love her. She would have been the mother you deserved. Soft and warm and caring. Love exuded from her heart even for the things and people she was afraid of, that she didn't understand. Her bravery was so strong, so deeply ingrained in her heart, just like you, my boy. But she, like your mother, has left me, too. 

A different letter, similar words. 

To have you both gone haunts my nights. I fill my days with the trivialities of others. They trade so easily for comfort, for things that they do not need. If only they could learn, but they do not. The man I used to be so desperately wants to warn them, but the darkness in me has changed who I am. The trick, the game, delights me and I grasp for and spark of feeling these days… even if it is delighting is someone else’s folly. 

It had been two months away now since she discovered herself on the other side of the bright orange line, and she'd added her own notes to the margins of the book. But these few pages always brought her back to her goal when she wavered. It was the one time she was mentioned in his scrawling hand. She'd never thought she'd find words about herself by his hand in this book about his son. 

She read the pages over and over when the nights got long and her heart broke with loneliness. 

She'd left a note for herself back in the beginning of the book: in their old life, a lifetime and worlds away, she'd left him. She'd had intentions of returning before she'd been captured by the woman who was responsible for sending them all to this world. But he thought her dead at the hands of her father. It was an incredible tale that at times she barely believed- but she knew it to be true. Deep in her soul the words stirred emotions in her and the feeling of cold, biting weight of chains on her wrists and ankles. 

He thought her dead, and he still spoke of her with such reverence. He wanted her to be mother to his boy. He wanted her in his life. 

And he thought she’d left him. 

She had left him this time. He was back in Maine, and she had no memory of what he looked like to even call upon when she snuggled in the sheets at night. But he had his memories of her, of his son, and she told herself that it was enough to know that she was doing this for him. 

She held the book tight, and tried to sleep.


	4. Remember What It’s About

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the following prompts from accio-firewhiskey: Belle's odd jobs /During her search, Belle doesn't realize she's pretty until someone asks her on a date

It was all taking far too long. Three months now she was gone and the cash she had was running out. She picked up the things called quarters and nickels any place she found them, hoarding them until she found a payphone in a place that she didn't think was memorable. Then she'd call him. Listen to his voice.

“You didn't take much, Belle.” He'd always say. 

“Please come home.” He begged at least once a phone call. 

“Where are you? I'll send you more money.” He always offered. 

And once, just once, he'd said, “Please, Belle, I can't lose you, too.” 

He was right, she knew. But she also knew she had to be strong. She was close. She was so close she could taste it, and she couldn't give up. Something deep within her sparked when she looked through local libraries and stopped at Town Halls. She was on an adventure and it had a noble cause. It felt like, deep in her heart, she was full. 

She wouldn't give that up for anyone…not even a man who was her true love. 

Money was tight, however, and she could only get by on so little before there were needs like gas and food. She started picking up odd jobs, inspired by a passage in the book about how she'd done it before, and now she always asked if she could trade a meal for cleaning on the road, or hard labor at a motel for a night's sleep. 

Most said no, and she was disheartened, but a few places, truck stops and tiny motels and little diners, sometimes said yes. They'd let her clean a few rooms or wash dishes for a good meal or a room for the night. She stayed at one diner for almost a week when the kindly old woman there (who, for some odd reason, reminded her of a wolf) said she'd pay her a cash wage if she could pick up shifts while her daughter was out sick with the flu. 

So she stayed, and worked, and met people. She smiled as she cleaned and served them hamburgers and coffee. She heard their stories over the night shift when there was nothing in the diner to keep the truckers company but her. 

She felt less alone for a little while. 

They smiled sweetly at her, joked with her. One who came in every other night on his trucking route told her she was pretty and it hadn't even occurred to her to mind or care about her appearance other than seeming put together enough to garner people's respect and clean enough to serve them food.

“Go out with me,” he said, low and hearty. He wasn't unattractive, but something about him made her think of roses, even though his hair was oily and slicked and his beard rough with a days growth and his shoulders were wide enough to hide her completely behind. 

“No, thank you,” she's said as she handed him another cup of coffee. “I have a... a man in my life.” She'd stuttered over it. To call him a boyfriend seemed childish and wrong, but to say he was anything less than hers, and she was anything less that his, well, that felt wrong, too. 

The man looked her over, more apprising than casual, and smiled darkly at her. “If you have to think about it, then he isn’t doing a very good job by you, is he?” 

Belle put down her rag and deliberately freshened the man’s coffee slowly. “Sir, he’s doing a very good job by me. We’re apart by necessity at the moment, not by choice.” She smiled politely and walked away, hiding in the back next to the walk in freezer. 

The cook looked at her; an older, overweight man with barely a wisp of hair on his head. “Someone you need me to talk to, honey?” He flipped another burger and pressed it down heavily into the grill, the fire jumping up to punctuate his offer. 

“No,” She shook her head and tried to hold back tears. “Just having a moment… I forgot… I forgot to remember that I miss him.”

He flipped the burger off the griddle and slid it onto a bun. “You can’t remember everything all the time. Even if he’s the best guy in the universe, forgetting for a little while might do you good.”

Belle stared at the man, wondering if he knew what it was like to forget, how cold and dark and scary it was to not know yourself, even if he was only trying to be helpful. 

She took the platter and smiled politely. She wouldn’t be here much longer. 

She wouldn’t forget again.


	5. Remember, It’s Real

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the prompt from accio-firewhiskey: Belle’s Dreams

Belle dreamt. 

She dreamt in stingy motels and in roadside rest stops. 

She dreamt wherever she could get a few hours of sleep in, wherever she could put her head down and close her eyes. 

Belle dreamt of a beautiful golden gown, of being dressed up like a princess while a castle crumbled around her. She dreamt of faceless men with swords and books and battle plans, all scrambling around her, turning her head this way and that, barking things that made no sense, making her feel lost and alone when she knew she was supposed to feel safe and at home. 

She dreamt of a man; a sparkling, dark, dangerous man that gave everyone else pause, that made them cower away. But to her, his darkness was a veil and his danger was a front, in his eyes, his yellowed, magical eyes, Belle felt safe. 

The castle would build up around them, roses and vines curling into the walls and through the mortar until there was nothing left but a single great room, warm and inviting and just for them, a tea set on it’s only table, a spinning wheel in the corner. 

Every night it was the same dream. They’d sit and take tea, no words exchanged, until she yelped, a chip on the tea cup splitting her lip. His eyes would widen in horror, then turn to rage, and it would all fall to dust around her. 

Belle would shoot straight up in her seat or her bed, wherever she was, lonely and desperate for the man to come back- for Rum to come back. Some nights she felt so lonely she’d hunt for a payphone. She always scared him when she woke him in the middle of the night, she could hear his own quickened breath and fear in his voice, but he never tried to let it show. 

But most nights she’d pull out the book again, look at the sketches and pour over his words. He wasn’t a dream or a long distant memory. He was real, a few states away in Maine, and he was waiting for her. 

She would find Baelfire, and when she did, she could finally go back. 

Then they’d rebuild their castle together.


	6. Remember, There’s a Whole World In Books

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the prompt from accio-firewhiskey: What the books say

In each city Belle’s adventure started and ended with a trip to the Library. It was always the first place she looked. Newspaper clippings, adoption records, school yearbooks- she went through it all. 

Most cities were well stocked but the librarians were useless: there was too much for them to be of any help aside from pointing her in the direction of the microfiche readers and letting her know that copies were a dime each. The small towns were where she fared better, the librarians were often residents, and could remember decades back of the children that had come through their doors for summer reading and book reports. 

She always started with the adopted boys- brown hair, bright eyes, right around thirteen years old. She’d go as far as she could in the library and if there were any, any adopted boys that still lived in town that she could ask, she would. She’d drive to their homes or businesses and introduce herself and show them the faded and worn picture of Rum from her book. She’d watch their faces, their eyes for any changes, any recognition. Even without words she knew she’d know when she’d found him by the look on his face. But most of them could name their parents, or had no recollection of the pawn broker in the picture. She’d politely say goodbye and excuse herself, driving back to the library to start again with the middle school yearbooks. 

She’d talked to 672 men like that, none of them Baelfire. 

She spent hours in the libraries. Most of it was doing research, following the small leads she was able to garner from the notebook she’d left herself, but sometimes she strayed. The shelves were filled with bright, fantastic pieces of literature. The pictures and words were far beyond that of any books she remembered reading. Histories, fantasies, how-to books… after a while she split her time more evenly, popping over to the genealogy section for advice on tracking lost family. 

She also let her mind wander- reading fantasies set in medieval castles and dark dystopian futures. She read romances about bright green country sides and middle school dances. The three novels she’d brought along with her when she’d left Storybrooke she’d already worn thin, and the new books were like a reward, an act of renewing her mind and her vigor. Four months in her car, with little but her book of clues and few and far between phone calls left her scrounging for any bit of hope she could find. 

She was nearly out of that hope when she found a collection of fairytales that included a very interesting retelling of Rumplestiltskin. 

She nearly charged the front desk, her heart pounding in her chest. The librarian was startled, eyes wide as Belle caught her breath and held the leather bound volume out to the woman. “How do I find this author?”

The librarian, withered and wary, took the volume and readjusted her glasses. It was a small town, they had only microfiche and news papers and a few humble shelves compared to some of the sprawling book repositories she’d been in. Belle had gone for hope today first before delving into the town records, and it seemed luck was on her side. 

The elderly woman, Mrs. Richards, smiled with an old memory and turned to the last page of the book. “I don’t rightly know now, dear, but this was a school project nearly twenty years ago. We were so proud of that class that we sent the typed pages out to the next town over to get bound and it’s been here ever since.” The woman showed Belle the last page with the uneven signatures of a class of middle school children. “I doubt any of them have written anything since, most don’t live in town any longer- not since the oil company moved in, that is. If you’re looking for fairytales I know of a few other authors you light like…” 

Belle caught her breath, the possibility of it being true being too much, and needing to find a way to explain it without sounding insane. She stumbled over the words that came out of her mouth. “No, I need to find the author of the Rumplestiltskin story. You see, it’s luck, pure luck that I found it- but I’m actually looking for a man. My husband’s son, you see.” She stuttered over the story she’d concocted months ago on a gloomy, depressing night. “His first wife ran off with the boy and he’s been looking for decades now.” Mrs. Richards’ eyes turned sad as she looked over the story with the crudely drawn figure of a sparkling imp. “We found that she abandoned him, you see, but we know little else. We don’t know if she gave him to a family herself or if he was put in an orphanage, or if she simply left him on the side of the road somewhere alone and cold, barely a teenager.” Belle reached out for the woman’s hand. “She was in love with someone else, and wanted to hurt my husband. But this story- Rum made it up for him. No one else tells this story like this- no one else feels for Rumplestiltskin like this. It must be him. Please.”

Mrs. Richards took her hand, a warm smile on her face. “My memory isn’t what it used to be, my dear, but I do know we have a very extensive collection of year books.” She flipped to the front of the book and ran her finger over the handwritten year just inside the cover. “I’m sure we can figure out which boy he is.”


	7. Remember, Be Brave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the prompt from accio-firewhiskey: The Clothes She Packed

The clothes she packed were all dirty, every single shirt, every single sock. Even her jacket had seen too much wear and was starting to carry a hint of mustiness. She’d been too focused, too in a hurry, to stop in any of the last few towns to find a Laundromat or even think of scrounging for enough change to do a quick load of wash. 

It was how she found herself washing her best blouse and skirt and a set of underwear in the sink of a public park at two in the morning. 

She couldn’t be dirty when she saw him. 

Belle had calculated out everything but this. She had enough money left to get her back to Storybrooke, enough gas to take them both back into town and right to Rum’s door. They could drive straight through, alternating, and then they wouldn’t need to stay in a hotel or stop for anything except food and bathroom breaks and she and Baelfire would be home in just a day. 

She drove past his door this afternoon- it was a cheap set of apartments, but still better than a hovel or a mansion though she wasn’t sure why. She got a cup of coffee and thought through what she’d say; how she’d present the book she borrowed from the library two states away and how she’d tell him of all that he’d missed. Belle would show Baelfire the letters and tell him that his father had changed. He’d want some time to think, but he’d come back with her… she was sure of it. 

She’d thrown away her coffee cup and headed back to the car, only to be confronted with the reality of what she’d done. The Cadillac was a mess, strewn papers and clothes, the smell of sweat and desperation, her books and notes on the passenger seat reminding her of long, lonely nights, the quarters set aside on the dash her last change left to call Rum, to tell him they were coming home that she’d been saving for days. 

She quickly drove to a park on the edge of the city, claimed a parking space in the shade and proceeded to dig through the car shifting her belongings from front seat to back seat to trunk until she’d cleaned out the trash and dirt. Then, as the children from the playground across the way all ran home and abandoned the swings and sandbox for the night, she shifted to going through her things, making piles and hiding things away in the dash and console to make the car useable. It would be the last night she’d sleep in it, the last night she’d be alone. 

In two days, she’d have her memories and he’d have his son. 

It was when she was done sorting her clothing and she looked down into her hands that she realized the only clean clothes she had left in which to meet Baelfire were a pair of stockings and a bright orange tank top. She laid out a blanket, putting the clothes back into the trunk, and fell asleep to the sunset, knowing she’d be awake in a few hours when the air took on a chill. 

It was then that she snuck into the bathrooms, hoping that a policeman didn’t happen by to throw her out, and she washed her clothes and herself in the sink. It wasn’t about her, but she also didn’t want to make a bad impression. She wanted to meet Rum’s son, to make him believe, and looking like she’d come from sleeping in the park, even if it was what she was doing, would not do. 

When she was finished she laid her damp clothes across the back seat, opening the windows to let the cool night air in to dry them. She stared at the change on the dashboard and ran her fingers over it as she settled into the driver’s seat for one more lonely night in the car. 

Tomorrow. Tomorrow she’d know.


End file.
